The Government of Alberta quickly launched its disaster recovery centre in Canmore last week, but available flood relief funds are only for those who had their primary residence damaged.
That means anybody who had damage to a second home or vacation home in Canmore won’t receive compensation and those who own rental properties damaged in the flood event are also ineligible.
“The disaster recovery program only provides financial assistance for homeowners to repair or rebuild their primary residence and other uninsurable property damage or loss,” said Kyle Fawcett, associate minister of recovery and construction, on Friday (June 28). “We are starting with the most important and those are the people who have lost their homes and are not able to live.
“That is the way the program has always operated historically and that is what we are delivering now; those other people are just going to have to hold off and we want to deal with people who lost their primary residence right now.”
Tenants who cannot live in their rented property are covered for their losses and encouraged to register into the disaster recovery process. Rental property owners were also encouraged to register through the process, even though at this time they are not being provided compensation.
While it is difficult to estimate the percentage of rental properties, the last municipal census showed that 37 per cent of residential property in Canmore is owned by non-permanent residents.
Mayor John Borrowman said he is concerned flood damage for second homeowners in neighbourhoods across the community is not covered by the province.
“It is a big concern in Canmore and is one of the things I will continue to work on with the associate minister and the minister of municipal affairs,” Borrowman said. “The bottom line is we have to help those affected in any way we can, so I will be working aggressively with the province to try and address this concern.”
The disaster recovery centre set up in Canmore saw 225 applications processed, including 30 from families in Exshaw. By the end of the weekend, 189 families were issued flood relief cheques. While there are no more scheduled dates for the centre, those who want to register can still do so by getting an application from the Civic Centre or going to the Alberta Works office in the provincial building.
Chief Administrative Officer Lisa de Soto said 11 more homes have been occupied along Cougar Creek since last week, which means there are still 32 Canmore homes that cannot be lived in at this time.
She added that along with Service Alberta, the Town is pre-screening contractors to conduct repairs to allow homeowners to know they are dealing with qualified contractors.
Meanwhile at press time, most of Canmore except Silvertip remained under a boil water advisory due to high levels of debris and sediment from the drinking water source at the Rundle forebay. Water quality levels have retuned to normal, however, the system needs to be flushed to replace the water that still has debris or sediment in it. Epcor crews began the process on Tuesday (July 2) and are expected to finish on Monday (July 8). It involves flushing fire hydrants in all neighbourhoods.
Tim Leriche with Epcor, however, could not provide an estimated time when the boil water advisory for the rest of the community would be lifted.
“We realize everyone is anxious and would like to get it behind them and we will do it as soon and safely as possible,” Leriche said.
While residents and businesses coped over the long weekend with the water situation, visitation to Canmore was affected by the situation.
Tulene Steiestol, Canmore Business and Tourism director of marketing and communication, said while numbers are not yet available, anecdotally the flood event and continued boil water advisory are causing people to cancel their reservations.
“The sad thing is that a lot of theses reservations are going into August that people are cancelling,” she said.
Steiestol said the Canada Day long weekend, combined with the amazing weather, should have had Canmore hotels full, but she didn’t see a single no vacancy sign along Bow Valley Trail.
Part of the concern, she added, is that many of the people who would be visiting the valley are also suffering the effects of the flood in Calgary and other communities across the province.
CBT has started a marketing campaign to let Albertans know its backyard is back open, and will focus on target markets throughout the summer.
“We are being sensitive to the fact that the boil water advisory is still on; whether that has impacted people staying, I think it has,” Steiestol said. “The main thing is once that is lifted we will hit the market harder because we truly know it is business as usual.”
Council also established a working committee for the recovery from the flood at its Tuesday night (July 2) meeting.
The mayor and Councillors Hans Helder and Sean Krausert will sit on the committee and meet soon to begin work with administration.
“Clearly, council wants to be directly involved in the recovery process,” Borrowman said. “This allows a lot of opportunity to be involved in different aspects and I think it is important for the community to see council is directly involved in the recovery process.”
That work will likely include the future of Cougar Creek itself. At the beginning of the council meeting this week, local resident Dieter Remppel asked if Canmore had considered rebuilding the creek with a cascade to change the velocity of flood waters after last year’s flood event and mitigation work afterwards.
CAO de Soto said a similar proposal was put in front of the province last year for the ultimate reconstruction, but cost more than the amount of funding Canmore received.
“We have been working hard with the province to identify responsibilities and jurisdiction over the entire rebuild of the creek and that is something we will discuss,” de Soto said.
